So yesterday I was listening to a workshop by Sharon Sala while waging yet another futile battle against weeds, albeit wearing a shirt that covered my shoulders this time. While I found some nice earbuds with a foam covering that helps them stay in my obviously defective, earbud-ejecting ears, they still fell out every few minutes, and it was too hot for my big headphones.

After a few cycles of 1) lose an earbud 2) take off gloves 3) reposition earbud 4) put gloves back on 5) rinse and repeat again and again and again, I began wondering why one was marked “left” and one “right”.

Curiousity finally got the better of me and, after peering around to make sure nobody was watching, I took a deep breath and went for it—left earbud in the right ear, right earbud in the left ear.

Huh.

Nothing happened. Ms. Sala sounded neither like a chipmunk nor one of the Three Tenors. The workshop didn’t begin playing backwards, offering up demonic deals with the publishing devils. I didn’t start walking backward. Nothing. No difference.

I think they just mark them in an effort to teach the current crop of public school educated middle schoolers their left from their right.

And let me say another thing—if you can listen to a workshop like “Writing is an Addiction” by Sharon Sala and then say something like…I can’t write because I don’t feeeeeel like it, the writing police should take your computer away. Seriously. When I listen to the trials she’s faced and how she kept on writing, I feel pretty crappy for whining about my sunburn infringing on my creativity and typing ability.